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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Redacted Mueller Report Lays Out Trump-Russia Contacts and Effort to Obstruct Justice; Trump Falsely Claims Mueller Found No Collusion, No Obstruction; Democrats Demand to Hear Directly from Mueller; Search for Cause of Notre Dame Cathedral Fire. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired April 19, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: FBI director James Comey to let then National Security adviser Michael Flynn go. When he later fired Comey, when he tried to persuade former Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself. Over and over again, Mueller describes episodes where the president tried to hinder his investigation.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And look, in the end the special counsel does not charge the president with obstruction, acknowledging that a sitting president cannot be indicted, but Mueller does not exonerate him either. He writes, quote, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment."
And Mueller does not conclude that Trump or his campaign cooperated or conspired with Russian efforts to help them and hurt Hillary Clinton, but Mueller says those in Trump's circle were definitely deceptive about their Russia contacts. The report says, quote, "The investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign lied to the office and to Congress about their interactions with Russian affiliated individuals and related matters."
We get more now from political correspondent Sara Murray.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Boris and Christine. Bob Mueller's report is out and the redacted report concludes the Trump campaign did not criminally conspire with the Russians, but the president, he had other reasons to dread the Russia investigation.
According to the report the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the president personally that the president could have understood to be crimes so that would give rise to personal and political concerns."
CNN has reported at least 16 Trump associates had Russian contacts during the Trump campaign or transition, and according to Mueller's report, the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts. But the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting just one of the moments the Trump campaign appeared eager to accept this Russian assistance. But Mueller's team declined to prosecute Donald Trump Jr. and campaign staffers saying a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that campaign officials or individuals connected to the campaign willfully violated the law.
The special counsel also investigated the rumor that Russia had compromising tapes of Trump from previous visits to Moscow. In October of 2016, Michael Cohen received a text from a Russian businessman that said, "Stopped flow of tapes from Russia, but not sure if there's anything else. Just so you know." The businessman told prosecutors he was told the tapes were fake.
Mueller's team also answered a key question, why they did not interview the president. While they believed they did have the authority to subpoena Trump and found Trump's written answers to be inadequate, Mueller's team believed it would delay the investigation, writing, "We had sufficient evidence to understand relevant events and to make certain assessments about the president's testimony."
Although Attorney General William Barr has cleared Trump of criminal wrongdoing, Mueller points out that Congress can still investigate and now Democrats are calling on Mueller to testify.
Back to you.
SANCHEZ: All right, thanks, Sara.
President Trump is hosting a White House event for the Wounded Warrior Project when the Mueller report dropped. Listen to his reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hey, I'm having a good day, too. It was called --
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: No collusion, no obstruction.
There never was, by the way, and there never will be, and we do have to get to the bottom of these things, I will say. This should never happen to another president again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: For the record, the special counsel did not clear the president of obstruction. In fact, he determined Mr. Trump attempted to influence the Russia investigation only to be thwarted by staffers who refused to carry out his orders.
We get more now from Kaitlan Collins at the White House. KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christine and
Boris, the president is now down in Palm Beach for the holiday weekend. But yesterday when he was leaving the White House, he did not answer questions from reporters, even though aides had said both publicly and privately they expected him to take a victory lap now that the Mueller report was out.
One reason that could be is that this report shows that the president tried to derail the special counsel's investigation but he wasn't as able to be as successful as he wanted to be because the people around him working inside the West Wing refused to carry out the orders that he gave them.
One of those of course is the White House counsel Don McGahn who in this report details a pretty fascinating relationship that he had with the president including the president growing angry after it was first reported that Trump tried to get McGahn to fire Mueller. In the report, it says that Trump wanted McGahn to deny that that had ever happened and McGahn refused because he said it actually did happen and it was true.
That is just one small piece in a series of stories that's revealed that people in the president's inner circle were essentially trying to protect him from himself. Now that's not likely to sit well with a president who doesn't like the idea that he's being managed over.
[04:05:01] And you could see that in his tweets from yesterday when he said and insisted that he did have the right to fire Robert Mueller even though he says he chose not to which of course we see from the Mueller report is not true -- Boris and Christine.
ROMANS: And more now on the -- thank you, Kaitlan.
More now on the special counsel's finding that President Trump attempted to influence the Russia probe unsuccessfully mainly because subordinates would not carry out his orders, Mueller goes into detail about the president's determination to fire him describing a night in June 2017 when Mr. Trump made a phone call to the White House counsel.
Mueller writes, "The president called Don McGahn at home and directed him to call the acting attorney general and say that the special counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, deciding that he would rather resign than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday night massacre." McGahn eventually left the White House last fall.
SANCHEZ: Let's discuss further with former U.S. attorney Harry Litman. He's the host of "Talking Feds," a podcast, and we have CNN reporter, Marshall Cohen joining us again.
ROMANS: Hey, guys.
SANCHEZ: Good morning to both of you. Harry, thank you so much for joining us. I'd like to start with you, and if we could pull up that full screen of all the times that President Trump attempted to hinder this investigation to obstruct justice. You have the instance when he asked James Comey to end the investigation into Michael Flynn, his former National Security adviser, when he tried to fire James Comey, when he asked Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself.
I also wanted to point out this graphic, a portion of a Mueller report page 370 where people refused to carry out the president's orders. It says quote, "The president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or cede to his requests."
So you have a person who is trying to commit an illegal act but people around him are preventing him from doing that. Is that grounds for prosecution? Perhaps not by the special counsel but Congress?
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Yes. Not just a person, the president of the United States.
SANCHEZ: Right.
LITMAN: This is really at best, you know, a D minus report card just skating by F because he got a couple answers from others, but he's playing it as an A plus. In fact, there are many instances than what the special counsel describes, you can certainly see, as attempted obstruction, and even as obstruction in which you just read, Boris. You have the special counsel saying we knew enough even without interviewing to know what was up, but I think there was an overall sentiment unexpressed in the report that if you shoot at the king, you've got to kill him, and there were overall triable, prosecutable cases that they decided not to go forward on.
It's certainly a sobering overall assessment and as you say, look at the -- not just the individual ones but the whole wealth of them. It's only through blind luck of not succeeding or having help, unwanted help from confederates that have kept him from going over the criminal line.
SANCHEZ: One of the key elements here, Harry, are the written answers that the president provided to the Mueller investigation. There were some 30 occasions where the president said he couldn't remember key moments during the campaign and during his presidency that really could have shaped this investigation and led it in a different direction.
Were you surprised that Mueller didn't push for a subpoena of the president given the number of times the president basically said I don't recall?
LITMAN: I was surprised. I have been surprised for months. As I've said, Robert Mueller is a god, and we are mortals, but still I couldn't understand that particular decision, even what he says in the report. It would have taken, yes, several months but those months would have been well worth it, and he actually said in the report almost as if we didn't need it, suggesting at least to me they could discern his intent anyway, but then of course puzzlingly they stopped short of saying it. This is the one decision, Boris, that I think people will be debating
for a generation, why didn't he do that, and I think reading between the lines, it's pretty clear there was a hot debate within his office, and he ultimately decided to be cool about it.
ROMANS: Marshall, let me bring you in here because, you know, we've been talking about the obstruction issue and all these cases of obstruction and how the president was basically protected by the people around him against his wishes, frankly. But then there's the collusion angle and you've been covering that for so long, and we found in here all of this collusive behavior in this report.
But I think it's important to remind people this is why there was an investigation because there was all this stuff happening that on the outside looked so shady, you know, the Trump Tower meeting, and the lying about some of these meetings, and lying about contacts with Russians and secret meetings that, you know, Jeff Sessions, for example, couldn't remember a meeting with the Russian ambassador until he was reminded of it.
[04:10:10] We know that there are 14 investigations that Mueller has, you know, punted basically to other authorities. Is this necessarily the end of this?
MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is the end of one chapter, right, the special counsel investigation, but as you mentioned, there are a lot of other investigations that are ongoing in other offices. Some of them we know about. Most of them we don't, and that was part of the report yesterday that actually was redacted about those ongoing matters.
Some of them may pertain up in the Southern District of New York regarding the Trump inauguration. Other things like that. But with regards to the, as you mentioned, collusive behaviors, the investigation didn't establish that there was a criminal conspiracy but it's always important to remember where we started. The day after the election, the Trump campaign said there were absolutely zero foreign contacts during the campaign. There were 200 pages in the report yesterday detailing those contacts.
SANCHEZ: Right. And Harry, something that the attorney general said yesterday during his press conference about the standard for prosecuting some of the dissemination of the hacked information, ultimately deciding not to pursue charges against people who may be published links to hacked e-mails from the DNC and from Hillary Clinton, what do you make of that?
LITMAN: Well, it's just another way in which, you know, the president and his circle gets by, by the sort of skin of their teeth. And it's really a matter of legal I'll say technicality. I'm a prosecutor. Technicalities matter. But they shouldn't matter in the same way to Congress. When you add it all together, it is, you know, one thimble full short of a big load of criminal conduct.
ROMANS: All right. Harry Litman, Marshall Cohen, nice to see both of you this morning. Thank you so much for your expertise. LITMAN: Absolutely.
COHEN: Thanks for having me.
SANCHEZ: Well, the Mueller report is giving us a new window inside the Trump White House. Wait until you hear what Trump said when he found out about Robert Mueller's appointment. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:16:28] SANCHEZ: President Trump has long claimed that he had nothing to fear from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation but the Mueller report reveals the president was terrified when he learned that Robert Mueller was appointed back in 2017. The report says this, quote, "When then Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the president that a special counsel had been appointed the president slumped back in his chair and said, 'oh, my god, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm f'd.'"
ROMANS: Leading Democrats in the House not showing any new appetite for impeachment now that they have seen the redacted Mueller report. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer telling CNN's Dana Bash, "Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgment."
Top House committee chairman in lockstep with that message, conscious of just how hard it would be to persuade two-thirds of the Republican- controlled Senate to vote to remove President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): The evidence would have to be quite overwhelming and demonstrable and such that it would generate bipartisan support for the idea that it renders that the president unfit for office. Now many of us do think the president is unfit for office but unless that's a bipartisan conclusion, an impeachment would be doomed to failure. I continue to think that a failed impeachment is not in the national interest.
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): It's too early to reach those conclusions. It's one reason we wanted the Mueller report, and we still want the Mueller report in its entirety and we want other evidence, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Democrats are also dismissing the assessments of Attorney General William Barr, and demanding to hear directly from the man who authored the report, Bob Mueller. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler also setting the wheels in motion on that. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NADLER: I have formally requested that Special Counsel Mueller testify before the House Judiciary Committee as soon as possible so we can get some answers to these critical questions because we clearly can't believe what Attorney General Barr tells us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Democrats are not stopping there as CNN's Manu Raju tells us, they are gearing up for a fight.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine and Boris. Now House Democrats are planning to pursue their investigations on multiple fronts in the aftermath of the release of the Mueller report. On one front there's going to be a full corps press to demand the full Mueller report, the unredacted Mueller report, including the grand jury information that Democrats have been asking for but the Justice Department so far not willing to turn over. Expect subpoenas that could come out as soon as Friday.
At the same time Democrats moving on other fronts, including an investigation into House Intelligence Committee looking into financial interests, potentially areas of compromise as the Democrats say that's been affecting the president. They've already subpoenaed nine different banks to get information about the president's business dealings. It's not clear whether the Mueller investigation fully probed this area as an area that Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants to continue to pursue initially off the bat.
Bill Barr, the attorney general, will be before the House Judiciary Committee at the beginning of May. Also before the Senate Judiciary at that time. Also, Bob Mueller, the special counsel, the Democrats want to bring him in for public testimony as well. The House Judiciary Committee also wants to look into the notion of potential obstruction of justice. They're going to use what the Mueller report found as a roadmap. But they say their investigation is much broader into abuses of power so they see this as fuelling their investigations even as the Republicans say it is time to move on.
[04:20:06] So, Boris and Christine, despite the end of the Mueller investigation, the release of the redacted report, end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one.
SANCHEZ: And there are still many other investigations.
ROMANS: There.
SANCHEZ: Manu Raju, thank you.
ROMANS: All right. What caused the fire that nearly destroyed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris? Authorities may have the answer. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: All right. It is Good Friday this morning, and authorities in France are still trying to determine what started the fire that ripped through Paris's iconic Notre Dame Cathedral this week. Investigators say an electrical short circuit may be the cause. [04:25:03] Despite the devastating fire, Holy Week services have gone
on as scheduled.
I want to bring in CNN's Melissa Bell. She is live in Paris with the latest details. Good morning.
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christine. That's right, investigators now looking at that possibility of an electrical portion that Notre Dame was undergoing renovation work when the fire broke out on Monday evening. Elevators had been installed, special electrical equipment clearly, and the question is whether a short circuit might have caused that spark that led to that devastating fire that so spectacularly burned the roof of the knave, the main part of Notre Dame.
And of course even as this investigation continues, investigators are inside even now trying to get to the bottom of the start of that fire. It is of course Good Friday. Now traditionally what happens in Paris, what tended to happen here inside Notre Dame was that during that ceremony, during that service, the Crown of Thorns believed to have been worn by Jesus as he went towards his crucifixion was brought out and exposed for Catholics to come and kiss, in what was always a pretty emotionally charged ceremony.
Now today, clearly that won't be happening inside Notre Dame, but here on the little island on which Notre Dame sits inside the Seine River, we're expecting that "Way of the Cross ceremony to take place. We're speaking to a bishop here yesterday who told us that he hoped the special permission would be brought for that crown to be brought out in what will be a ceremony that will be, as you can imagine, all the more emotional today.
ROMANS: Yes. The holiest week in the Christian calendar and this tragedy. Hopefully there's new meaning to all of the sacraments this week. Thank you so much for that, Melissa Bell.
SANCHEZ: The Mueller report runs much deeper than just collusion and obstruction, it is chalk full of fascinating new details, many of which could prove damaging to the Trump White House. More next.
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END
